Then, one morning, as Kayerts and Carlier, lounging in their chairs under the verandah, talked about the approaching visit of the steamer, a knot of armed men came out of the forest and advanced towards the station.  They were strangers to that part of the country.  They were tall, slight, draped classically from neck to heel in blue fringed cloths, and carried percussion muskets over their bare right shoulders.  Makola showed signs of excitement, and ran out of the storehouse (where he spent all his days) to meet these visitors.  They came into the courtyard and looked about them with steady, scornful glances.  Their leader, a powerful and determined-looking negro with bloodshot eyes, stood in front of the verandah and made a long speech.  He gesticulated much, and ceased very suddenly.

There was something in his intonation, in the sounds of the long sentences he used, that startled the two whites.  It was like a reminiscence of something not exactly familiar, and yet resembling the speech of civilized men.  It sounded like one of those impossible languages which sometimes we hear in our dreams.

“What lingo is that?” said the amazed Carlier.  “In the first moment I fancied the fellow was going to speak French.  Anyway, it is a different kind of gibberish to what we ever heard.”

“Yes,” replied Kayerts.  “Hey, Makola, what does he say?  Where do they come from?  Who are they?”

But Makola, who seemed to be standing on hot bricks, answered hurriedly, “I don’t know.  They come from very far.  Perhaps Mrs. Price will understand.  They are perhaps bad men.”

The leader, after waiting for a while, said something sharply to Makola, who shook his head.  Then the man, after looking round, noticed Makola’s hut and walked over there.  The next moment Mrs. Makola was heard speaking with great volubility.  The other strangers—­they were six in all—­strolled about with an air of ease, put their heads through the door of the storeroom, congregated round the grave, pointed understandingly at the cross, and generally made themselves at home.

“I don’t like those chaps—­and, I say, Kayerts, they must be from the coast; they’ve got firearms,” observed the sagacious Carlier.

Kayerts also did not like those chaps.  They both, for the first time, became aware that they lived in conditions where the unusual may be dangerous, and that there was no power on earth outside of themselves to stand between them and the unusual.  They became uneasy, went in and loaded their revolvers.  Kayerts said, “We must order Makola to tell them to go away before dark.”

The strangers left in the afternoon, after eating a meal prepared for them by Mrs. Makola.  The immense woman was excited, and talked much with the visitors.  She rattled away shrilly, pointing here and there at the forests and at the river.  Makola sat apart and watched.  At times he got up and whispered to his wife.  He accompanied the strangers across the ravine at the back of the station-ground, and returned slowly looking very thoughtful.  When questioned by the white men he was very strange, seemed not to understand, seemed to have forgotten French—­seemed to have forgotten how to speak altogether.  Kayerts and Carlier agreed that the nigger had had too much palm wine.